Barbie Doll

If this poem were to be written from the perspective of this man, it would probably be a protest against the emasculating post-feminism mindset wrought in corporate America. I would probably call the poem "Neo-Masculine" , or even "Nice Guy." There are pressures on man to conform by society, but none as strong as the threat of androgyny. It's as if women are being asked to be more masculine and men, more feminine. I have seldom been condoned in attending a corporate meeting while donning a beard, much less, an untrimmed beard. It is sad that a natural beard is seen as unsterile and threatening to the impotent environment that is the corporate boardroom. The untrimmed beard is likened to an unwashed body. We are asked to be politically correct, and generally accepting of all things we inherently would like to fight, but are discouraged by society from doing so. We want to hire men we can relate to, but our frivolously judicial society threatens that if we don't hire enough women, we will have no rebuttal in corporate sexual harassment cases. We are then discouraged from bravery, as our society tells our men that they need to act like their women. When our banks get robbed, our men lose their jobs for being men, and fighting threats to our women and our friends. Men want to self-sacrifice, but we are told that we can only fight for what the company wants us to fight for. Our safe society has killed chivalry and caused the repression of our natural masculine aggression. Stigmas and labels have been placed on aggression, as if it were all negative. Our reality has been constructed for us by the all-powerful media, controlled by the big corporations, who finance their political candidates. There is no fight left in man, no chance of protection against tyranny, we all do as we are told. The repression of aggression, as caused the only manifestations to be unnatural, when they explode to the surface, only reinforcing the negative stigmas surrounding this and other defining male characteristics. These are the ideas that I would like to convey. Through working, I would attempt to paint the picture of a figuratively neutered man, who has to fight who he is all of his life, in order to be considered acceptable... to be considered a "nice guy."